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Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Day 2 men's round-up

Andy
Murray began his campaign with an impressive straight sets win
over Japan’s Go Soeda. Going in to the Match Murray has never lost
to any of the current top five Japanese players. During the seemingly
easy first round encounter, Murray produced 32 winners, 12 aces and
just 13 errors. Furthermore Murray didn't even get a break point on
his serve against the Japanese 112. After his impressive first round
win Murray said (quoting sky sports) :-

"It
was my first grand slam game since back surgery so I was taking
nothing for granted. I am really happy to win in straight sets."When
you haven't played for a while you are pretty stressed out before the
match and nervous to know how the back is going to respond. But it
felt good today so hopefully I will wake up tomorrow with no after
effects of the match, but it has been a good start for me so
hopefully I can keep going.”

In the second round
Murray will face qualifier Vincent Millot
following his hard five set win over Wayne
Odesnik (75 46 67 61 63). This was Millot's first ever win in the
main draw of a Grand Slam.

In
the Rod Laver Arena there was a titanic battle going on between home
favourite Lleyton Hewitt and
24th
seed Andreas Seppi.
Seppi seemed to be in full control of the match with a two set's and
a break lead over the 32 year old Australian however Hewitt who has
a reputation of a fighter sure lived up to it in the match.
Recovering from a break down in the third he edged his way back to
level the set before displaying some of the play which took his to
number 1 in the world over ten years ago to take it 75. Hewitt then
repeated this in the forth set taking it 75. Going in to the fifth
set the winds was changing direction once more as Seppi raced to a
3-1 lead before Hewitt battled to gradually level it back up again
and even forced Seppi to save a match point at 4-5 30-40 down in
which he did. There was then heartbreak for Hewitt and the crowd as
Seppi surged on to take the set and match 75 in the final.

Rodger
Federer eased past James Duckworth in his
first match. During the Match Federer's serve prove pivotal with 76%
of total service points won with just 17 errors compared to
Duckwoth's 38. Federer also produced a solid 11 aces. It might
however be some consolation for the young Austrailian to note that he
did produced more winners than the mighty Federer (34-30). Up next
for Federer is Blaž Kavčič after
his opponent (while leading 2-1 on sets), Radek Stepanek was forced to
retire due to some sort on neck injury/headache.

The predicted blockbuster match Between Rafael Nadal and Bernard Tomic was unfortunately not to be when Tomic retired due to Injury. The Injury seem to be some kind of groin and Eurosport did speak of rumors about him tweaking something yesterday in training.

Jo-Wilfried
Tsonga was yet another player who looked
in good form after his straight forward 75 63 63 win over Filippo
Volandri. Tsonga fired 36 winners and dropped only one service
game in the match. Up next for the mighty Frenchman is Thomaz
Bellucci
after his first round opponent has to retire injured.

Two
seeded player was force to withdraw from today’s action. John
Isner who won last weeks ATP Auckland open withdrawn while 2 sets
behind due to a foot injury and Philipp Kohlschreiber
withdrawn due to a strained left hamstring.

Other
wins today included Juan Martin Del Potro who
survived a first set scare before coming through against American
qualifier Rhyne Williams in a hard 6-7 (1), 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, In form
Gael Monfils won 64
64 64 against Ryan Harrison and 2013 Australian open Boys finalist
Thanasi Kokkinakis
enjoyed a encouraging 7-6(4) 0-6 7-6(3) 6-2 win over Igor
Sijsling.